Republicans Only Have 13 Women In The House

Guess which party is havin' a meetin'

After the North Carolina Republican Party got caught trying to steal the NC-09 House seat last November, the election of far right Trumpist sociopath, Mark Harris was invalidated and a special election called for September 10. Citizens of a district going from Charlotte to Fayetteville will have had no representation in Congress for nearly a year. The Democrat in the race is, politically, a worthless Blue Dog, Dan McCready and his GOP opponent, Dan Bishop, is even worse-- a right-wing psychopath who made a name for himself as author of the legislation to deny transgender children bathrooms.

There are only 13 Republican women in the House, a shockingly low number likely to bear some of the responsibility for the output of such a horrifying GOP agenda, even more extreme than normal. Women have been encouraged to run in open-seat primaries and against Democrats, weakly by the NRCC and strongly by Elise Stefanik' and her pro-women leadership initiative E-PAC. [Spoiler: last cycle, Stefanik raised money by screaming about electing women-- for example, $10,000 each from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UPS, Goldman Sachs, the Laborers Union, Ernst & Young-- but in the end she contributed to 54 right-wing men and just 20 women. She's a phony; keep reading.] When it came time to sign up for the NC-09 race, 4 women qualified as candidates. The votes of all 4 combined didn't add up to the transgender bathroom bill guy.

• Transgender Bathroom Bill Guy- 14,178 (47.7%)
• Leigh Thomas Brown- 2,624 (8.8%)
• Stevie Rivenbark- 892 (3.0%)
• Fern Shubert- 433 (1.5%)
• Kathie Day- 190 (0.6%)

Two other crazy right-wing lunatics, Stony Rushing (5,820 votes) and Matthew Ridenhour (5,065 votes) also finished significantly ahead of Brown. The biggest outlay of outside money ($1.3 million) was spent on behalf of Brown by the National Association of Realtors-- with this ad-- but to no avail. The ad was too positive and uplifting, not what Republican primary voters expect to hear in North Carolina. They were more interested in Dan Bishop's negative ugly messaging against AOC and socialism and his image as someone for trans-fats and against transgender students. This is the ad the Club for Growth, which was backing Stony Rushing, ran to smear Brown:





Did the NRCC or Stefanik rush to her defense? Not a chance. On Sunday Laura Barrón-López and Mealnie Zanona, reporting for Politico wrote that "Before Leigh Brown ran for a vacant House seat in North Carolina earlier this year, she got plenty of encouragement from Republicans in Washington eager to grow the ranks of GOP women in Congress. Then Brown jumped into a crowded Republican primary-- and the people who had given her hope were nowhere to be found. Among those who disappeared, she said, was Rep. Elise Stefanik, who launched an initiative this year to elect more Republican women."

“That's a little frustrating to have initial conversations and then follow up and be ghosted,” Brown said in an interview with Politico. “I put my real estate business on hold. I've dinged my own reputation in order to put myself forward as a public servant, and then you find out exactly how lonely it is to run for office.”

Stefanik acknowledged Brown’s account during a brief exchange in the Capitol last week but declined to elaborate.

The Republican Party has ramped up its efforts to recruit female candidates for the 2020 election, following the brutal midterm that decimated the ranks of GOP women. But Brown’s experience highlights an enduring challenge for the party: translating widespread concern about the dearth of women in the House Republican Conference into significant campaign support and, ultimately, victories by female candidates.

GOP consultants and candidates acknowledge their recruitment and resources lag far behind Democrats. And no centralized group exists to provide hiring advice, social media guidance, press training, or messaging tactics to candidates. Democrats, on the other hand, have the behemoth EMILY’s List network, as well as groups focused on recruiting immigrants, women of color, female veterans and more.

“The support structure needs to be more than the idea that you can get some PAC dollars from random PACs out there,” Brown said. “I didn't know how to hire. I'm an outsider to this.”

Republicans are not blind to the problem. A growing number of outside GOP groups are dedicated to boosting female candidates since the House GOP’s official campaign arm doesn’t play in primaries. “Winning for Women” launched a new super PAC in response to the devastating losses Republicans suffered in 2018.

And after watching her party swear in a 29-member class of House freshmen that included 28 men, Stefanik repurposed her leadership PAC, known as E-PAC, to focus on backing women in primaries. She told Politico at the time that “we are at a crisis level for GOP women.”

But neither Stefanik nor Winning for Women supported Brown, who faced nine other Republicans in the North Carolina race-- including three other women, each of whom finished with fewer than a thousand votes. The National Association of Realtors threw $1.3 million behind Brown as she presented a more moderate tone than her conservative opponents, and View PAC, a group focused on electing more GOP women since 1997, endorsed her.

Brown also spoke to Winning for Women before she filed and received strong encouragement. But once she announced her candidacy, she never heard from them again. Winning for Women’s super PAC said it has limited resources and stresses candidate viability.

...[A] number of Washington Republicans, including Stefanik and Winning for Women, have coalesced around a different female candidate in another special North Carolina race this year: Joan Perry.

Perry’s success in an upcoming July 9 runoff will be the first real test of Republicans’ new efforts to propel female candidates through primaries. But Perry begins the race at a disadvantage: She finished with 15 percent of the vote in the April primary, behind the first-place candidate, Greg Murphy, who earned 23 percent.

If Perry fails, it will highlight the limits of Republicans’ cash-only strategy-- and amplify the party’s woman problem heading into 2020. [It will also highlight how bad GOP recruiting is when the best woman they could find is so obviously unsuited for Congress and who couldn't come up with a better ad than this pathetic attempt to run against AOC and Bernie. Has anyone asked her how she feels about the total abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri?]





“Donors are taking it seriously. Outside groups are taking this seriously. The party is taking it seriously,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for the Winning for Women Action Fund. “It would be awesome if the first election after the midterms, Republican voters chose a woman. It would send a strong message.”

Indeed, Republican leaders have made replenishing their ranks of female lawmakers a top priority in 2020. The issue could take on even greater urgency if Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, decides to run for an open Senate seat in Wyoming.

The party’s leader, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA), has already contributed to New York state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who is running to unseat freshman Democratic Rep. Max Rose-- even though the rest of the GOP field has yet to take shape.

[Note: Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm is expected to run, win the primary and lose the general.]

...[A]ccording to recent data collected by The Associated Press, just 38 of 172 declared Republican House challengers for the 2020 elections were women, or around 1 in 5. That compares with 84 of 222 declared House Democratic challengers, nearly 2 in 5.

Part of the problem, critics say, is that there is little concert between the groups set up to help Republican women. And they limit where they get involved to vacant, open Republican-leaning seats or swing districts currently held by Democrats-- while deliberately shying away from backing challengers to male incumbents.

...The key to getting Republicans to commit to a cohesive effort to boost women candidates isn’t just convincing them that it’s good for the party’s image, but that women will make better candidates in general elections against Democrats, VIEW PAC’s Conway said.

"People need to put their thumbs on the scale during the primary to make the nominee be the person most likely to be able to win in November,” Conway said. “And the Republicans have not done enough of that.”

"The key to getting Republicans to commit to a cohesive effort to boost women candidates isn’t just convincing them that it’s good for the party’s image, but that women will make better candidates in general elections against Democrats." Yes, but that will never happen inside a party that seems to think that a way one women is a good strategy to turn out their base voters. Maybe not passing abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest in every state that Republicans control would be good messaging too?

Congressional Primary One Week From Today: NC-03

As I mentioned in the post Sunday about the special election in PA-12, Democrats don't win in R+17 districts-- not ever. How about a district where the PVI is R+12? That's very unlikely, but not quite as impossible. The Democrats serving in Congress today in the reddest districts are:

Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT) R+13
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) R+12, which he's held since 1990 when it was not so prohibitively red
Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC) R+10 seat
Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK) R+10

After that the big anti-Republican/anti-Trump wave swept some Dems into extremely tough districts with PVIs of R+5, 6 and 7... all considered almost impossible to win. There are two more congressional special elections coming up after the PA-12 seat on May 21... both in North Carolina, the 9th and the 3rd districts. The 9th is doable and the Democrat is has an even chance to win that R+8 seat! The other one, NC-03, that's the R+12 district I was referring to. Almost impossible, but not absolutely impossible. So far the DCCC is pretty much ignoring the district, just as they are PA-12.

Walter Jones, a former Democrat and the most independent-minded Republican in Congress, died in February, meaning the seat is open. Obama lost the district both times he ran and Trump crushed Hillary there: 60.5% to 36.9%. Last cycle, the Democrats didn't run a candidate against Jones. There 2016 candidate, Ernest Reeves, took 32.6% of the vote to Jones' 67.4%. Jones never had less than 60% in any of his 11 re-election races.

The district includes all or parts of 17 counties from the Virginia border and the Outer Banks to the Marine Corps Camp Lejeune and along the coast past Beaufort, New Bern and Jacksonville and inland to the suburbs around Greenville. The district is mostly rural and the biggest city is Jacksonville, with a population of about 72,000. Yesterday a Washington Post OpEd by Max Boot, excoriating the GOP-- My Former Party's Reaction To The Mueller Report Fills Me With Disgust-- isn't likely to make it into the information stream of many-- if any-- voters in NC-03. "Having declared the Republican Party to be morally bankrupt last month-- after 90 percent of GOP lawmakers voted to approve President Trump’s unconstitutional state of emergency-- I am not remotely surprised by the party’s dishonorable and dishonest reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report," he wrote. "But I am nevertheless dismayed and disgusted that a once-great party-- to which I belonged for most of my life-- could become a handmaiden to foreign attacks on the United States and blatant lawbreaking by the president." No one in Currituck, Onslow, Carteret, Terrell, Craven, Pamlico or any of the other are going to see what Boot had to say. I have a feeling not many cable systems in the district carry MSNBC either; just a feeling.

Crazy far right lunatic, Rep Michael Speciale, is obsessed with males' genitals

The primary is a week from today. As best as I can tell there are 26 candidates-- 17 Republicans, 6 Democrats and a couple of Libertarians and a guy from the Constitution Party. The general election is scheduled for September 10. Of the 17 Republicans, 16 of them made it to a forum a week ago at Currituck County Middle School in Barco. Of the 16, they all pretty much agreed on everything, including a strong embrace of Trump-style xenophobia. They all want to waste tax payer money on a feudal wall, calling immigration a "crisis" or "national emergency." Right-wing state Rep. Greg Murphy, for example, said he has "empathy" for immigrants fleeing violence in their home countries, but claimed the border is "overrun" and that it's not America's "job to be the breadbasket for everyone." His somewhat less empathic colleague, state Rep. Michael Speciale claimed illegal immigrants are bringing drugs, crime, and disease, exactly what xenophobes and racists like Speciale said about the Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, Chinese, Japanese and everyone else who has come to this country-- and made it great-- in the last 2 centuries. One of the little Nazis, Celeste Cairns-- whose cousin is fascist congressman Lance Gooden from Texas-- called for ending the constitutional right of birthright citizenship, of course. Sorry... off topic (kind of). These are the Republican candidates:

• State Rep Greg Murphy, a penis doctor and the biggest money raiser in the field
• State Rep Phil Shepard, a Baptist pastor.
• State Rep Michael Speciale, very extreme and very obsessed with homosexuality
• Lenoir County commissioner Eric Rouse, a proud gun nut/wing nut
• Currituck County commissioner Mike Payment
• Currituck County commissioner Paul Beaumont
• Celeste Cairns, the Nazi with the Nazi cousin, a CPA who has been endorsed by Club for Growth
• Francis De Luca, former president of the Civitas Institute
• Jeff Moore, a former McCrory staffer, a current right-wing blogger and a religious nut
• Michele Nix, a former vice-chair of the North Carolina GOP and a 100% Trump stooge
• Joan Perry, an anti-Choice fanatic and crackpot
• Phil Law, a frequent candidate, hoping to get lucky this time
• Kevin Baiko, a random person
• Graham Boyd, a random person
• Gary Ceres, a random person
• Chimer Davis Clark Jr., a random person
• Don Cox, a random person

And these are the 6 Democrats participating in their party's primary"

• Richard "Otter" Bew, Recently retired Marine colonel
• Gregory Humphrey, a random person
• Isaiah "Ike" Johnson, retired marine
• Dana Outlaw, Mayor of New Bern
• Ernest Reeves, frequent candidate
• Allen Thomas, former mayor of Greenville


Unquestionably, the dumbest person in the race-- so a likely frontrunner-- is the former party hack, Michele Nix. She says she'll stand up to socialism and she's pretending she's running against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This is her ad:



If the world turns upside down, I suppose Bew could beat one of the more extreme Republicans, maybe Rouse or Nix. Thomas and Bew are outraising the other Democrats-- 255,390.10 for Thomas and $124,513.34 for Bew as of the most recent FEC April 10. On the Republican side, Greg Murphy has raised $317,994.00, Joan Perry has raised $154,345.00, Rouse raised $147,640.00, De Luca $119,410.89, Moore $104,781.40, Cairns $75,099.50, while Nix surprised everyone by only bringing in $48,203.50.

Chris Hardee, the Democratic Party district chairman says "it's a moderate district where citizens want someone who'll fight for the region's military bases and agricultural economy. The special election raises the wild-card possibility that with the right general-election matchup or narrative a Democrat could pull an upset. This is our best chance-- and maybe our only chance for a while, if we don't win. If they did, it would be historical.

How would you like this loud-mouthed piece of crap as a congressman-- let alone a neighbor?

Walter Jones, RIP

Walter Jones was one of the few Republican members of Congress who I was able to get to talk with me for DWT. And he was always a serious and forthright guy. I liked him and was sorry to hear he had passed away today, on his 76th birthday. He hadn't been back to Congress since late last year.

Like his father, he began his political career as a conservative Democrat. His father, also Walter Jones, served in Congress. Walter Jr, was elected to the North Carolina state House in 1982 and represented Pitt County until 1992 when he ran, unsuccessfully , to his retiring father's congressional seat. He lost the Democratic primary. Walter Jr switched parties and in 1994 was elected to a neighboring seat as a Republican, becoming the first Republican to represent an eastern North Carolina congressional seat since Reconstruction.

Now his seat is firmly Republican-- R+12-- and McCain won with 56.8%, Romney with 58.5% and Trump with 60.5%. Last year he was reelected with opposition, although two right-wing extremists challenged him in the primary-- as the far right had been doing for some time, unhappy with his centrist positions, particularly in advocating the end of the Iraq war.

According to ProgressivePunch, his lifetime crucial vote score was the 5th most progressive of any Republicanand he often had better scores than right-wing Blue Dog Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jim Costa (CA) and Collin Peterson (MN).

Boehner removed him from his place on the House Financial Services Committee for not being lockstep with the party enough. (For example, he was one of the few Republicans who supported a minimum wage-- and of raising it.) After he came out against the Iraq war, Boehner semi-secretly backed a primary opponent but Jones won anyway.

“I did not do what I should have done to read and find out whether Bush was telling us the truth about Saddam (Hussein) being responsible for 9/11 and having weapons of mass destruction,” Jones said in a 2015 radio interview. “Because I did not do my job then, I helped kill 4,000 Americans, and I will go to my grave regretting that.”

Jones signed more than 11,000 letters to families of dead troops since 2003, an act he told The Associated Press was “penance” for his vote. Jones began sending the letters after attending the 2003 funeral of Marine Sgt. Michael Bitz.

“I want them to know that my heart aches as their heart aches,” he told the AP.


...Jones tried, without success, to get the House to debate a new war authorization as the U.S. military presence spread around the Middle East in its fight against terrorism, arguing that the 2001 authorization approved after the attacks of Sept. 11 had been used “far too long,” according to one letter, as justification.


...Jones served as co-chair of the Campaign Finance Reform Caucus, pushing for reforms to lessen the impact and role of large campaign contributions. He called for the repeal of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which opened the door for super PACs, and pushed for public financing of elections. Jones railed against the corrosive influence of money in politics for much of his career.

“The money up here is power,” Jones said in a 2005 interview with McClatchy. “Power is money. It’s true for both sides. That’s what creates problems.”

Jones also worried deeply about the nation’s growing debt, angering some Republicans by voting against President Donald Trump’s signature tax-cut bill because of its impact on the debt. He refused to vote for bills that increased the national debt.

“I can’t do it,” he told the News & Observer. “My consistency is the fact that of my great concern that the debt one day of this nation will strangle the economy... We can’t keep doing these things we can’t pay for.”

UPDATE: Ted Lieu

"Walter Jones was a great man and a courageous, principled public servant. I was honored to have had the opportunity to work with Walter on a number of issues, including reforming our campaign finance system; preventing the President from launching a nuclear first strike without congressional approval; and getting the US out of the horrific civil war in Yemen. Walter will be missed."

Walter Jones Understands The Tragedy In Afghanistan A Lot Better Than Señor Trumpanzee Or Paul Ryan

NC-03-- the Outer Banks and most of the state's coastal plain from the Virginia border south of Norfolk down past New Bern and Jacksonville. It's a very red district, R+11, and Walter Jones has been congressman there since 1994 (a year after he switched from Democrat to Republican). Romney beat Obama there, 59% to 41% and Trump did even better-- 60.5% to 36.9%-- last year. Jones did even better-- beating Democrat Ernest Reeves 67.2% to 32.8%.

Jones is a principled, libertarian-leaning social conservative. He votes for progressive legislation quite a lot. In fact his 41.18 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score for 2017 is the highest of any Republican-- by far-- and better than 17 House Democrats-- DINOs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-11.11), Henry Cuellar (TX-16.67), Collin Peterson (MN-16.67), Dan Lipinksi (IL-22.22), Tom O'Halleran (AZ-27.78), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-27.78), Ron Kind (WI-27.78), Ami Bera (CA-27.78), Stephanie Murphy (FL-29.41), Kurt Schrader (OR-29.41), Scott Peters (CA-33.33), Jim Costa (37.50), Raul Ruiz (CA-38.89), Lou Correa (CA-38.89), Jacky Rosen (NV-38.89), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-38.89).

Ryan-- and Boehner before him-- have consistently struck out against Jones, penalizing him in committee assignments and encouraging right-wing nut jobs to run against him in primaries. Last year a deranged Trumpist, Phil Law, ran against Jones in the GOP primary and managed to win just over 20% of the Republican vote. A sleazy right-wing lobbyist, Taylor Griffin, also ran and he nearly got 15% of the primary vote. Reeves, the Democrat, raised no money for the general election but in the primary Griffin spent $345,966 and Law spent $145,404. (Jones spent a total of $693,517 for the primary and general.)

The Republican Establishment hatred for Jones seems to endear him to his own constituents, who like his independence. He's the most anti-war of all the Republicans in Congress and is famous for once telling a conference of Ron Paul supporters that "Lyndon Johnson’s probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney." A few days ago he told PJMedia that Congress should stop funding the war in Afghanistan. He opposes Trump sending more troops and opposes the idea of "trying to build empires around the world." He also pointed out that Congress hasn't had a debate about the war in Afghanistan since 2001. Jones:

I’m absolutely opposed to it, because if you increase the number of American troops that means the number of Americans to be killed and wounded goes up. And again, I come back to the point, what have we accomplished? We spent over $800 billion dollars. We are very close to $1 trillion in the past 16 years.

We've had over 2,200 Americans killed and 20,000 wounded. What have we accomplished? In fact, [Hamid] Karzai, the former leader of Afghanistan, is now trying to get the Russians to negotiate with the Taliban so he can go back into power. It’s now like the Wild West that is wilder than it has ever been… by increasing the number of troops, all you’re doing is increasing the odds of American troops being killed or wounded.

History has proven it doesn't work going back to the Roman Empire. I mean, anybody that knows history-- that's what [former Marine Corps Commandant] Gen. Charles Krulak has said to me many times-- if you know history, you will know that no one is going to change Afghanistan. It is a tribal nation.

More important than the money is young men and women are being killed and wounded and Congress has a constitutional responsibility to debate and vote about sending our young men and women to war, but we don't do debates like those anymore. Yes, there have been efforts by Democrats and Republicans to put amendments on appropriations bills with money going to Afghanistan, but really no policy debate at all.

We've written [Paul Ryan] letters, we talked to him personally and he has not [asked the committees of jurisdiction to mark up a new Authorization for Use of Military Force]. This is going to be an effort of trying to get more and more members of Congress of both parties to come together for no other reason but to say after 16 years is it now a time to debate the issues of our country and our military in Afghanistan, and what’s the definition of victory? After 16 years we have no definition of victory. We’re saying you, not the president, but you have the authority as leader of the House to permit your members of the House to meet their constitutional responsibility of debating war. It's not up to the president, it's up to the Speaker of the House and he hasn’t done it."

Matt Coffay and Jenny Marshall, progressive Democrats, running for Congress on the opposite side of North Carolina, both supports with what Jones is trying to accomplish. "I firmly agree with Rep. Jones' opposition to a troop and spending increase in Afghanistan," Matt told us, "and second his suggestion that Congress hold an open debate about our military involvement there. After maintaining a decade and a half-long military presence, it's long past time that we reassess-- in Jones' words-- how exactly we define "victory" in Afghanistan. America ought to have the smartest, sleekest, most efficient, and most effective military in the world. A troop increase in Afghanistan won't get us any closer to that goal. And neither will defense spending increases, unless the spending is done intelligently. The new defense budget proposed by Trump includes the construction of 84 new fighter jets, to the tune of billions of dollars for taxpayers--but do those jets really keep us safer? Threats to the United States continue to evolve, and beyond Jones' call to reexamine Afghanistan, I believe we also need to reexamine how and where we're allocating our defense spending across the board. Are we spending money to keep Americans safer, and to make our military the best in the world? Or are we spending money for the benefit of the military-industrial complex?"

Jenny added that "The U.S. has spent 1.7 Trillion dollars in direct war appropriations over the last 15 years, but counting the cost of war in dollars neglects the human loss of life and the lingering effects once the bullets have stopped flying. Nita Crawford from Brown University states 'A full accounting of any war’s burdens cannot be places in columns on a ledger, from the civilians harmed or displaced by violence, to the soldiers killed and wounded, to the children who play years later on roads and fields sown with improvised explosive devices and cluster bombs, no set of numbers can convey the human toll of the wars.' Yet, we can know the numbers of the ever-rising death toll. 3,407 US and Allied troops, 3,540 US Contractors, 406 humanitarian workers and journalists, 31,419 civilians in Afghanistan alone. The numbers for the wounded are staggering. So, when the war hawks beat their drums remember that war must be the last option because the cost is just too high."

Back in 2001 there was only one member of Congress with the guts to say NO to Bush and Cheney and their bloodlust when it came to attacking Afghanistan: Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee. She is the model of courageousness in Congress and an inspiration to anyone thinking about taking a difficult vote of conscience. Last night she told us she admires Walter Jones' own efforts in ending the Afghanistan debacle. "Congressman Jones has been a steadfast leader in the effort to rein in our endless wars and he’s completely right. After a decade and a half in Afghanistan, it’s past time to learn there is no military solution to this conflict. We will continue to urge Speaker Ryan to allow Congress to hold a debate and vote on the repeal of the 2001 AUMF, which is nothing more than a blank check for endless war. Additionally, we will keep demanding that President Trump listen to the war-weary American public and bring our troops home."

If iron worker and union activist Randy Bryce-- who was unanimously reelected by the Wisconsin Democratic Party to head their veterans division this past weekend-- beats Paul Ryan in the 2018 midterms, he will be another Democrat with the kind of guts it takes to cast votes of conscience, the way Barbara Lee did. He told us that "Under a Democratic President, Osama bin Laden was taken out. Under Republican leadership, the key to the Oval Office has been handed over to the Russians. What do we have left to gain in Afghanistan after 16 years? Trump made a promise to rid the world of ISIL within 30 days of taking office. Time is up." He continued:

It might be a subject for debate if those returning from wars were taken care of, but, we’re not. Further draconian cuts to help our heroes once returned are in the proposed budget.

I know Paul Ryan isn’t a fan of working together in a bipartisan manner (i.e. Health care) but, this should be a no brainer for anyone who looks at the subject for more than a few minutes.

When it comes to veterans, I don’t see any partisan lines. Veterans are the only reason why we continue to have the freedom to choose how to think politically.

Veterans don’t ask what party another vet identifies with before offering the shirt off a back-- we help however we can because it is the correct thing to do.

Paul Ryan-- even though you are afraid to face us in the 1st CD, please do something to show us that you still have some semblance of compassion by letting our troops come home. Do what we did to protect our country-- work together to achieve a goal. We all took an oath.

Show us you are capable, and, maybe you won’t need to be so afraid to face us. It’s been over 600 days since you’ve had a town hall.

Paul Ryan And Virginia Foxx Are Lying About What TrumpCare Will Do To Folks In North Carolina

Among the standard GOP lies about TrumpCare-- promulgated by Ryan's office-- is that the process was not rushed or chaotic. When Ryan was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, he responded to a question about the disorderly process by claiming such assertions are "a bogus attack from the left." Many Republicans have admitted they never read the bill; I suspect the majority hasn't read it and that the decisions most made to support it was a political calculation, not a decision based on policy considerations.

One Republican who showed Ryan up as a liar was principled North Carolina conservative Walter Jones, one of the 20 Republicans to vote NO. He explained his vote on his official congressional website and Ryan's disjointed process poisoning the well played into his decision.

“For over seven years, I have heard from the people of Eastern North Carolina about their trials and frustrations with Obamacare. It is clear that Obamacare is not working. That is why I voted against the bill that created it in 2010, and have continuously voted to repeal it,” said Congressman Jones. “Now in 2017, for reasons I cannot understand, instead of moving a bill to repeal Obamacare and replace it with reforms that will fix our broken health care system, the Washington Republican leadership jammed a bill through the House that does neither. Furthermore, the rushed, behind-closed-doors process they’ve used is shameful. Over the past several weeks, they cut deal after deal to secure members’ support, and then pushed the bill to the floor without a CBO score.  As a result, no one has any idea how much those deals will cost the American taxpayers, or how they might affect the cost, quality and availability of health insurance coverage for American families. Seven years ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously said of the Obamacare bill: ‘You have to pass the bill so we can find out what’s in it.’ Sadly, the Washington Republican leadership is repeating the same mistakes.”

 “Furthermore, there are many aspects of the bill that deeply trouble me because of their potential effects on Eastern North Carolina and rural America. For example, the bill discriminates against as many as 7 million American veterans by making them ineligible to receive tax credits provided in the bill. It would also result in low-to-middle income seniors paying dramatically higher premiums.”

“Over the past two months, thousands of Eastern North Carolinians of all political stripes have contacted my office about the AHCA,” Congressman Jones concluded.  “Well over 90 percent are opposed to the bill. I asked for this job to represent the people of Eastern North Carolina, and they have spoken clearly.”

And these are the most commonly used words by Americans to describe the GOP leader

Halfway across the state, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx represents a Piedmont district that includes part of Winston-Salem and points west. Foxx couldn't disagree more with Walter Jones and is a huge proponent of taking healthcare away from poor people. The DCCC doesn't target her-- not ever-- but this cycle, grassroots Democrats in NC-05 are ignoring the DCCC and going after Foxx themselves. Jenny Marshall is the progressive candidate in the race, endorsed by Blue America. She's working to hold Foxx accountable and make sure the district's voters know what her record really is all about. Jenny is making clear what Foxx's support of TrumpCare means for the district-- where 30,059 people will lose their coverage if TrumpCare is ever signed into law. Earlier today she reminded us that "Foxx once said 'There are no Americans who don’t have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare.' She was wrong then and she is wrong now. There is no access when people cannot afford to buy healthcare insurance and cover the out of pocket expenses. There is no access when people wait for far too long to seek care because of the rising cost of doctors' visits, prescription costs and medical procedures. People have been priced out of the care they need, but Foxx has turned a blind eye. Her yes vote on the AHCA was confirmation of that. I on the other hand support moving to a single payer program that covers not only medical, but vision and dental care as well. We must step up and do what is right for the people of this country. Act now to send people to Congress who will represent the will of the people. Lives depend on it."